Ready for Holidays (in Hand)

I've prepped my album for the Holidays in Hand class that Jessica Sprague ran over the last two weeks. I printed my daily prompts on regular paper and stacked them up on an altered mini clipboard that was hanging around my stash. I don't plan on keeping these prompt sheets after the project is done, so I'm not concerned about the quality of the paper or if I scribble all over them.

I'm using an old Bazzill 6" x 12" album that I won back at CKU Boston in 2006, and never figured out what to use it for. I've pre-cut all of my layout base papers to 6x12, and I'm using plain cardstock and sheets from a My Mind's Eye stack that I bought at Michael's. I printed out the number text that Jessica provided and mounted them onto strips of green cardstock so I can just snip them to length when I'm ready.

Because I'm not using a square album, I can't really use the templates that Jessica provided, so I'm working on my own template. It will be simple so that I can put the pages together fast. I will likely use office tags as my journaling spots and handwrite my notes.

Holidays in Hand

Okay, so I'm a little behind on this, but I intend to see it through, so here I am! :) I'm taking Jessica Sprague's Holidays in Hand class, which guides you through the process of creating an album during the month of December. You get all the prep done ahead of time, then spend a bit of time each day during December building each page.

One of the exercises is to state your holiday values. These are the things that mean the most to you and your family during the December holidays. We celebrate Christmas, so obviously our values focus on that holiday.

Our major values are family gathering, food, music, traditions, and decorations.

Some actions I'd like to take during the holiday season include:

• We'll make Christmas cookies together with the kids
• We'll teach at least 5 Christmas songs to the kids
• I'll take pictures while we decorate the house for Christmas
• I'll commit to 20 minutes of journaling/creating/photo-taking/scrapbooking each day during December.

My next step is to print out the daily prompts for December. I'm printing them on regular paper, and I'll probably mount them on cardstock and link them up with binder rings. I haven't decided exactly how I'll display them, maybe an easel style.

Don't Forget Your Teachers!

Only two more months until Christmas! Are you making any handmade gifts for anyone on your list this year? Handmade items make great gifts for teachers, particularly if you create items that teachers can use in the classroom. Here's a few of my resources and articles for handmade and semi-handmade gifts that teachers will love:

Teacher Gift Ideas
Ideas for Handmade Christmas Gifts
My altered notepad holders and other gifts at Etsy.com

Dress it Up

I'm adding some embellishment packs to my Etsy store. I had put these packages together for the craft fair I worked at this past spring. These packs are great because I hate buying a whole package of chipboard or embellishments when I only want one or two of something. I put up chipboard packs today, and I have small and large embellishment packs by color that I'll be putting up later.

Check out my Etsy store HERE!

Edit: fixed the link. I didn't realize I pasted a Lowe's page in there instead!

Oh it feels so good...

...to be creating again. I finished a layout last night, and I'm currently working on altering a binder album that will hold my Travel layouts. I'm going to an altered book workshop on Monday that my friend Christine is hosting, and I've got ideas percolating in my head. My creative juices have been dormant for a while, so this is a great feeling. Here's a Halloween card I did for the Examiner Scrap Challenge; a simple yet cute card using scrap papers.

Boston Scrap Challenge!

Hey all you Boston/New England ladies! I'm starting a new weekly feature at Examiner.com to provide you with a weekly scrap challenge. Anything goes for these challenges, I could ask you to scrap a certain theme, a certain product, a certain technique, or something completely crazy. So check out Boston Scrap Challenge #1 posted today, and check back every Friday (or even better, subscribe to my Examiner feed) for new challenges.

Writing for Examiner.com

I wasn't going to post this until I've had a bit more experience with writing there, but I've had a few people ask me about writing for Examiner.com, and how they can apply.

Examiner.com is an online news and information portal that has local editions, depending on where you're located. There are individual city editions, and some cities have neighborhood editions to provide a micro-local take on their subject. Each Examiner covers a certain topic in a certain area. I'm the Boston Scrapbooking Examiner, but there are other Scrapbooking Examiners in other cities, as well as a national Scrapbooking Examiner. Examiners report on news items that are of interest to their topic, and provide resources that readers could use. Readers can subscribe to an Examiner's feed to get email updates when new entries are posted.

Writers earn money based on page views, ad revenues, subscribers, and other factors. The exact formula is not made known, but my rough return so far has been about 9 cents for every 10 page views. It's not making me rich yet, but it can build up, and I know other Examiners who are doing quite well.

So, how do you get involved with Examiner? Go to the Examiner web site, and scroll down to where it says "Now Recruiting in (Your Town)". Click on the link for available topics, and search through to find what you need. Scrapbooking is part of Home and Living, if you're interested in that topic. If you're not seeing your local towns, go back to the top of the page and select your edition. When you find what you're looking for, click on the SELECT link next to the topic to apply.

When you apply, there's a spot at the end of the application that allows you to enter the name of an Examiner who referred you. I'd love it if you added my name (Susan Kristoff)/Examiner number (24560), but there's no requirement to do so. I do get a referral fee of $50 if you list me as a referral and you are hired as an Examiner, so yes, there's something in it for me.

If you have any other questions, let me know!

Where's my gadget gals at?

Two new releases this week:

Xyron Creatopia - Kind of a silly name if you ask me, but this is like the Swiss Army knife of the scrap world, seriously.
Cricut Gypsy - Holds all of your Cricut cartridge data and is a portable design studio.

Spreading the Good Scrap News...

Awesome fun scrappy news, I've just been hired as the Boston Scrapbook Examiner at Examiner.com! Examiner is a website that provides a local focus on a wide variety of topics, and has Examiners all over the country that create content.

So, I'll be sharing information on local stores, crops, conventions and events, as well as letting my readers know about new product releases, tips and techniques, and links to all sorts of resources.

There's not much there yet, but please visit the Boston Scrapbook Examiner page and subscribe to my feed if you want to be notified when I post new information.

If you're in the New England area, and you have something you'd like to promote, like a store, an event, or a service related to scrapbooking, please contact me and I'll post about it on Examiner!

New Cricut Gypsy

I don't own a Cricut, so this device would be totally useless to me, but the gadget gal in me likes the concept. A portable device that stores all of your Cricut cartridges, and allows you to lay out your cutting plans on the screen so you can best conserve your paper.

Check out my summary article at Suite101: What is the Cricut Gypsy?

Etsy Fun!

I've started an Etsy store to sell some of my paper crafts. I'm starting by adding some of the items I was selling at the craft fair this past spring, but I'll add other items along the way. Check it out!

Cygnus Artworks at Etsy

Learn!

I've been writing articles at Suite101 for a couple of years now, and while I generally focus on Engineering topics, I do write some crafting articles when I need a change of pace. Here are the links to my craft-related articles. Most are how-tos and easy projects!

How to Create a Decorative Canvas
Choosing a Paper Trimmer
Altered and Decorated Frames
Altered Notepad Holder
Creating an Altered Clipboard
Handmade Teacher Gifts (This has been one of my most popular articles!)
Altering Chipboard with Paper
5 Essential Cutting Tools
10 Essential Scrapbooking Tools (Great for someone just starting to scrap!)
Chipboard 101
Custom Envelopes for Gift Cards
Recycling Holiday Cards

You want what???

I was going through my blog stats for one of my blogs, and over the last month, I've had six different searches (coming from different locations, countries) for "engineer christmas cards" or some close variation.

Christmas cards with an engineering theme?

Hrm. I like a challenge....

Canvases!

I made these two little canvases, and they were so much fun! I'm going to find some more in different sizes, I want to make a few for my kitchen.

Taking Stock

I have been sorting out layouts that are in my existing albums, basically taking some layouts out of the kids' albums and creating some new themed albums: Celebrate, Travel, and Family. I think that all of my layouts have homes in an album now. I do have ideas for future albums, such as making a School album, or a separate Family album for extended family as opposed to immediate family, but this is good for now. I have a ton of school-related stuff to scrap for both kids this summer.

I've been planning a bunch of activities for me and the kids this summer, trying to work in educational aspects with each so we can learn about new things. For example, I'm thinking of taking the kids to Concord to where the Revolution started so we can talk about America's founding and birthday around July 4th. Also a trip to the Worcester Art Museum and then do some painting, etc. I am thinking of making a simple journal/scrapbook for Perrin to put photos and his notes, maybe a 6x6 spread per week.

I need to take more pictures anyways, I've hardly taken pictures at all this year. I took some at Perrin's party last weekend but I haven't even looked at them yet. I need to go through my pics and get a whole pile of them printed. I think that's been one reason I haven't done much scrapbooking, I haven't had any photos to scrap.

Fun Fair Results

We had the Fun Fair at P's school this past weekend, and I had my craft table set up. Mind you this is the first time I've ever done a fair, so I really had no idea what I was doing. I basically broke even, which considering my thoughts afterward, really wasn't that bad.

I realized I hadn't really considered my audience. While there were plenty of moms who looked at my stuff, the fair was mostly for elementary school kids, and if I did this specific fair again, I'd want to have more items that appealed to kids in that age group. Also, I definitely need more cards, including a better assortment of birthday cards.

I am thinking about doing another fair in May. It's a larger fair, and just for crafters. _E might make some wood items for me to sell too. I'm thinking I might alter some birdhouses and make some more canvases. In the meantime, I think I'm going to add some of my stuff to my Etsy store (I have nothing there yet, which is why I never mentioned it). I took a couple of pics at the fair this weekend, see them below.

And I actually started back in on my scrap space reorg last night. In the last few days before the fair I made a huge mess of my space as I finished things up. So, I cleaned off my scrap table last night, and sorted out some of my stuff. I need to make a run to Ikea sometime to get some drawer sets for my shelves for embellishments and other things.

*sigh*

Creative endeavors have been delayed a bit.....we've had some issues with ice on our roof and DH and my FIL have been out scraping snow and ice off our roof. One of these methods involves hanging out our skylights in our attic, so all my craft stuff had to be moved so they could set the ladder up under the skylights. So, things are on hold.

I've been brainstorming items to make for my craft table at the fair. I've made four more of those notepad holders, and I have the coasters to make a few more. I've found a few pre-made albums that I made at conventions or classes that I never used. I think next I'm going to make some cards. I have a bunch of ideas in mind, so if I can make six or so of each, I'll have a good batch. Some of the SBO sistas suggested that pre-made pages sell well. I have a whole bunch of pages that I made while teaching classes that I never added photos or titles to, so I think I'll embellish them up a bit. So far, all I've spent is the $15 for the table, so I'm in good shape.

Featured Article at Helium

An article I wrote was featured on the front page of Helium.com, an information portal. Oddly enough it was the lower ranked of the two in the category, go figure? It's a beginner's article, but go read it anyways, LOL!

Getting Started with Scrapbooking

Bad Blogger.

Nothing to report. Nothing new. Although my scrap table is mostly cleared off, and I've picked out some ribbon to make some cute coaster notepad holders (instructions HERE if you want to make your own).

Side Project - Craft Fair

Well, I found out the other day that P's school is having a Fun Fair in March, and they are renting tables for vendors. So, I got the bright idea of using up as much stuff in my stash as I can, and selling it at a table at the fair. E thinks it's a good idea, and the gals at SBO gave me some good advice and ideas for products that I hadn't thought of. So, I need to clean off my scrap table, and actually scrap and organize at the same time. *cringe* I could really use the extra $$, and I have so much extra paper and embellishments and alterables and albums that I could really put to good use, rather than just taking up space in my stash.

Sooooo......you may see some more crafty creations here too if I can get my act together. :) I have to pay for the table now, so that will get me moving!